How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [164]
They are endlessly re-readable. Another way to say this is that some of the books-we will not say exactly how many, nor will we try to identify them, since to some extent this is an individual judgment-are over the heads of all readers, no matter how skillful. As we observed in the last chapter, these are the works that everyone should make a special effort to seek out. They are the truly great books; they are the books that anyone should choose to take with him to his own desert island.
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The list is long, and it may seem a little overwhelming.
We urge you not to allow yourself to be abashed by it. In the first place, you are likely to recognize the names of most of the authors. There is nothing here that is so recondite as to be esoteric. More important, we want to remind you that it is wise to begin with those books that interest you most, for whatever reason. As we have pointed out several times, the primary aim is to read well, not widely. You should not be disappointed if you read no more than a handful of the books in a year. The list is not something to be gotten through in any amount of time. It is not a challenge that you can meet only by finishing every item on it. Instead, it is an invitation that you can accept graciously by beginning wherever you feel at home.
The authors are listed chronologically, according to the known or supposed date of their birth. When several works of an author are listed, these too are arranged chronologically, where that is possible. Scholars do not always agree about the first publication of a book, but this need not concern you. The point to remember is that the list as a whole moves forward through time. That does not necessarily mean that you should read it chronologically, of course. You might even start with the end of the list and read backward to Homer and the Old Testament.
We have not listed all the works of every author. We have usually cited only the more important titles, selecting them, in the case of expository books, to show the diversity of an author's contribution to different fields of learning. In some instances, we have listed an author's Works and specified, in brackets, those titles that are especially important or useful.
In drawing up a list of this kind, the greatest difBculty always arises with respect to the relatively contemporary items. The closer an author is to our own time, the harder it is to exercise a detached judgment about him. It is all very well to say that time will tell, but we may not want to wait.
Thus, with regard to the more recent writers and books, there is much room for differences of opinion, and we would not claim for the later items on our list the degree of authority that we can claim for the earlier ones.
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There may be differences of opinion about some of the earlier items too, and we may be charged with being prejudiced against some authors that we have not listed at all. We are willing to admit that this may be true, in some cases. This is our list, and it may differ in some respects from lists drawn up by others. But it will not differ very significantly if everyone concurs seriously in the aim of making up a reading program that is worth spending a lifetime on. Ultimately, of course, you should make up your own list, and then go to work on it. It is wise, however, to read a fair number of the books that have been unanimously acclaimed before you branch off on your own. This list is a place to begin.
We want to mention one omission that may strike some readers as unfortunate. The list contains only Western authors and books; there are no Chinese, Japanese, or Indian works.
There are several reasons for this. One is that we are not particularly knowledgeable outside of the Western literary tradition, and our recommendations would carry little weight.
Another is that there is in the East no single tradition, as there is in the West, and we would